Eye of Ra and Tahrir Square make Eng. Alsaadany 12^thamong the famous competing designers and architects

After being ranked 72nd amongst the top 100 architects and designers around the world in the last year, in addition to receiving four international awards in the field of creative design from the global Italian "A 'Design Award and Competition", architect Dalia AlSaadany won seven design awards in the same competition to be ranked 12^thamong competing designers in 2014. These awards raised Egypt from the rank of 182^ndto the 25^thrank globally in the field of design and architecture.

Dalia received the Platinum Award for "Eye of Ra" which is a piece of furniture designed in the form of Eye of Ra or Horus; it was designed to be more like a resting place in streets and public squares. Dalia said: "my ambition for this design was to integrate ancient Egyptian history with the future methodology for designing. It's like the transformation of the most famous ancient Egyptian religious tool turned into to a piece of flowing furniture that everybody can use in the streets. The design also symbolizes the strength of the meaning behind the Eye of Horus, which is known as fluid or flowing design."

Eng. Dalia won The Gold Award for fully developing and changing Tahrir Square under the title "Tahrir Square Urban Renewal". She believes that this place was the source of history and freedom many years ago. Therefore, development should fit the prestige and history of this area and square.

In addition, she won two silver awards, one for the project "Yazz Lighting Fixture", an innovative lighting unit in a new and different shape. Eng. Dalia said; "Yazz is the fun of lighting; it is made of a set of wires that can be bent and shaped according to its owner's mood. Various units can also be combined to form more different lighting effects, as well as being aesthetically appealing, easy to be used and economical". She added that; “the idea of Yazz came up to reduce lighting to the most essential elements as the ultimate expression of beauty".

The second award was for “Brieven Piazza Public Square”, it was a design for Square shape that can be implemented to develop any of Egypt different squares using Arabic style like ancient Kufi writing style. Dalia said: “inspiration came from my love to simplicity and originality that is represented in Kufi writing style to have a historic shape and to give a message that different types can be put together although it may be seen contradicted, but it gives a deep philosophical meaning to those who watch this square”.

Two other designs won the Bronze Award, first one was “Cyfer Hi-Tech Retail Store”, a futuristic design for supermarkets with technology to respond quickly to client’s orders through external and internal elements in the design, that forms an easy flowing work environment, allowing customer to ascertain the quality of products and make it easy for clients to directly inspect products before buying them. The second award was for “Brackets Column Beam Structure”, which is a development for building roofs to be used in a new and different way, and that is exactly what Egypt needs to change the shape of the ugly and misused roofs.

“This design is a technical solution to use the non-functional areas in buildings roofs all over the world and particularly in Egypt, as these roofs have the special structure for each building, so I made a beautifying design to change its shape using special structural works on solar panel systems for producing electricity and heating water. This will help in protecting the environment and saving electricity” Dalia stated.

The seventh winning project is about a handmade ceiling using the classical French style. She participated in the international competition believing in the importance of skilled craftsmen and supporting them, especially because handmade products are in their way to extinction. "This handmade ceiling is made from oak-wood and was presented to an Egyptian client to be used in his dining room, it took one year for the craftsmen to build with an area of 4.25m by 6.80m and it looks like the sun with its rays.” Dalia confirmed.

Dalia pointed that she believes that an architect should be involved in the actual work himself and not to depend only on producing designs. She confirmed this by doing site supervision on her own work and she has mastered contracting. She is the first woman to combine interior architecture and landscape design which is characterized by creativity, artistic sense and implementation.

She added that she worked on contracting for ten years before she started interior design work. She then started doing furniture design in modern styles that are mix between classical and modern. This is what made her special in creating masterpieces reflecting the harmony between the two styles. Easily, this is what allowed her to reach this high international rank among the world’s famous designers.

The Italian awards give an opportunity for the winning products to be presented for major companies to buy and to commercialize the modern ideas. The award also aims at shedding light on architects who have new ideas and supporting them to reach the highest levels of professionalism and creativity. It is important to note that in this year about 12,536 designers have participated from 208 country in 105 design categories accredited worldwide, 758 of which from only 77 countries in 74 design categories won.